DENVER (AP) – When people buy marijuana from a store in Colorado, the ounce they can walk out the door with is fairly easy to measure. Not so when the pot is in concentrated form, perhaps baked into a cookie or brownie.

The state could soon address that issue with a bill pending in the House.

“An ounce of concentrate is a significant amount – it’s probably close to about 10 times the amount that you would have in an ounce of the flowers,” said Democratic Rep. Jonathan Singer, who is co-sponsoring a bill that directs the state Department of Revenue to determine how much concentrated pot is equal to an ounce of leafy pot.

To put the difference between flower marijuana and concentrated pot in further context, Singer noted that “an ounce of concentrate would last most medical marijuana patients probably pretty close to a year.”

Colorado currently allows adults over 21 to possess an ounce of marijuana for recreational use, but the legalization amendment that voters approved in 2012 makes no distinction between leafy green pot flowers or highly concentrated hash oil used to make pot-infused edibles.

Washington state, the only other state with legal recreational pot, already has limits of less than an ounce for hash oil, 16 ounces of pot food, and 72 fluid ounces of weed drinks.

Colorado’s marijuana industry agrees there should be equivalency standards, and sent a letter a couple of weeks ago to the revenue department requesting as much. But Mike Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, said it will be a complicated process and that it’s unclear right now what the equivalency standards should be.

A Missouri State Representative named Bill Lant is a Republican who represents Missouri’s 159th District. It’s a small, rural district dominated, if you can call it that, by the little town of Anderson, population 1,998.

Aarden Gross is a 27-year-old constituent of Bill Lant’s, just 26 miles away in tinier unincorporated Rocky Comfort. Aarden is interested in having Missouri’s marijuana laws reformed and decided to email his state representative, Bill Lant, to express his feelings.

Aarden’s not a professional lobbyist or even an amateur activist. His writing skills aren’t the best and his emails are a bit long. But he is a citizen, a constituent of Bill Lant’s, and most important to this article, a patient suffering from a vascular disease for which medical marijuana would be helpful.

Aarden Gross and Bill Lant got into an email discussion where apparently Aarden told Rep. Lant about his medical need. ”I have reached out to you several times trying to get a conversation started,” Aarden wrote, “and the only words I have got from you out of half a dozen emails was ‘I will think about it’.” In that email, Aarden expressed how a CBD-only bill under consideration wouldn’t help most patients and wouldn’t help him. ”The only way to ensure all patients are getting the medicine they need,” Aarden continued, “is to completely legalize marijuana.” Aarden also asked Rep. Lant about his personal views on medical marijuana and what sources he uses to shape those views.

Rep. Lant responded:

Aarden, my District survey shows 89% disapproval. We will not have an opportunity this session to vote on a proposal as bill filing has closed, but I will send out another poll before next session. Thanks, Bill

Disturbed that Rep. Lant deferred to a survey rather than offering his own opinions, Aarden responded to Rep. Lant angrily, upset that Rep. Lant wouldn’t answer any of his questions. ”You need to have a conversation about Marijuana,” wrote Aarden, “It is a serious subject and with your obvious lack of willingness to even discuss the current situation I doubt you will be my representative for long.”

Now maybe Aarden showed a lack of respect and decorum in some of his writing. Maybe after nine or ten long emails about the same subject, Rep. Bill Lant too hastily hit “Send” late after a long night of legislating. But this response from an elected state official shows a disturbing lack of maturity and respect for the people he represents:

Mayor Martin J. Walsh moved this week to stymie the opening of two medical marijuana dispensaries in Boston, voicing his toughest opposition so far at a forum in Dorchester and firing off a letter to state officials urging swift action if inaccuracies are found in the companies’ applications.

“I am writing to express my serious concern regarding the two registered marijuana dispensary applicants in the city of Boston,’’ the mayor wrote in a letter dated Tuesday that was addressed to the state’s secretary of health and human services, John Polanowicz, and the executive director of the state’s medical marijuana program, Karen Van Unen.

Walsh said questions have been raised about the two companies, Green Heart Holistic Health & Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is eyeing a 3,000-square-foot dispensary at 70 Southampton St., and Good Chemistry of Massachusetts Inc., which has planned a store on Boylston Street.

He noted that the state is assessing the veracity of dispensary applications and urged “swift and uniform action” if inaccuracies are found, saying that would reaffirm confidence in the regulatory process.

“If any information provided in either application is confirmed to be inaccurate, I ask that the Department of Public Health immediately eliminate that application from being eligible for a final certification of registration,’’ Walsh wrote.

A state health and human services spokeswoman did not return repeated calls for comment Tuesday.

The letter follows public comments Walsh made during a community presentation Monday. The mayor said he is “dead set” against marijuana dispensaries, has long opposed medical marijuana laws, and would prevent stores in Boston that sell cannabis.

“I have made it very clear to the state that I don’t want these dispensaries in our city,’’ Walsh told about 200 people at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, a small wooden house of worship on a corner of Humboldt Avenue, in a neighborhood where opposition to the marijuana dispensaries is fierce.

But Walsh probably faces an uphill battle to stop the shops, analysts said. With a voter-approved law establishing the dispensaries and a state licensing process underway, Walsh might be able to stall the process by using the city’s zoning laws, but ultimately would have little power to permanently ban the stores, said Jeffrey M. Berry, a Tufts University political science professor.